


Nick & Takeo - #07 - Wasteland

by zosimos (trismegistus)



Series: Tobira no Mukou e [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Original Characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-24
Updated: 2010-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-09 03:08:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/82364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trismegistus/pseuds/zosimos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt #7 of 50</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nick & Takeo - #07 - Wasteland

**#07 - Wasteland**

The world that clattered by outside the train was a dry, empty desert. The sun looked impossibly hot, and there was no respite from any horizon. No shade, no trees, just the slowly-baking passenger cars and the train trundling steadily along the track.

Nick sat along on the bench. It was a standard open car, with two benches facing each other, and two back-to-back. There was no one seated opposite him. His suitcase sat on the bench beside him as a preventative measure, but the passenger car was barely even half full, no one had come to sit awkwardly beside him.

He had propped his elbow on the sill of the window, his chin in his hand. The scenery hadn't changed for over an hour, dunes and desert and low, sparse scrub brush. One of the harshest climates out there, and yet somewhere out in that mess people not only managed to survive, but thrive. Nick sighed, and looked back at the book on his lap. He hadn't opened it yet.

Nick's arm was in a sling, the automail pulling heavily at his shoulder. It wasn't fully healed, the nerves were new and sensitive and if he jostled it just the wrong way the pain was paralyzing. But he couldn't lay around in the middle of nowhere any longer. Takeo was long gone from Central, and Nick had to find him; find out what he found and follow him before he got in so deep to secrets he had no business sticking his nose into that he'd lose more than just a few hairs.

It had been long months since Nick had even seen his best friend. At first, Takeo had jumped a train every other weekend or so to Resembool, and when he wasn't there in person he was writing letters. Then the visits dwindled but the letters kept going strong. The letters dwindled several weeks later.

Two months later, Mustang arrived in person to tell Nick that Takeo had vanished.

Nick was a patient person. Recovery from automail surgery took a long time as you built up the nerve endings, as your skin grew around and to the port. As your body got used to the strain and compensated. But at that point he had already been out of commission for close to seven months. He was done.

Fortunately - or unfortunately, as the case may be - Winry guessed how quickly Nick's patience would run out. She made several tweaks to his new arm and gave him the strictest of care instructions and sent him on his way. "You're determined to outdo him in everything, aren't you?"

He couldn't outdo the old man in anything. Nick wasn't interested in alchemy. He didn't want this metal monstrosity attached to his shoulder. All he cared about was the research into The Gate - which was practically nonexistent - and keeping an eye on Takeo. They had to get home, no matter how long it took.

Occasionally, Nick would dream about how those eyes had all looked at him as the black pillar shot up out of the center of the transmutation array Takeo had drawn on his floor. The only reason Takeo was here with him was because he grabbed Nick, tried to pull him back from hands before it was too late. Even if Nick didn't want to go home, it was his responsibility to get Takeo there.

He sighed again and glanced back down at the book in his lap. There was something ridiculously funny about the fact that the most basic book on alchemy was sitting in his lap, but at the moment Nick couldn't see the humor in it.

Nick turned his attention back to the sands outside his window. Another seven hours in this train, and then he'd have to pick up a trail two months cold. If luck was with him Takeo wasn't dead already.

The sun bounced off the sand outside the train as it rattled past. The desert was as endless as the task before him. Nick made a fist - gently - with his new automail hand, resting on the book in his lap, and then shifted slightly so he wasn't leaning against the window. He opened the book to its first page and started reading.


End file.
